# External DVD CD RW Drive not Visible

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/external-dvd-cd-rw-drive-not-visible/711307>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 30, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/external-dvd-cd-rw-drive-not-visible/711307 "2015-01-30T04:42:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/external-dvd-cd-rw-drive-not-visible/711307/1 "2015-01-30T04:42:29Z")

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I have a Lenovo Window 7 laptop that didn’t come with an internal CD/DVD drive. I bought an external DVD drive for playing DVDs and it works fine, but I needed a way to write to CDs and DVDs so I also bought a DVD CD RW drive thinking I could just attach the USB cable and everything would work.

When I first plugged it in Windows said the driver was installed successfully, but I couldn’t see the drive in Explorer. I tried rebooting the laptop and it still wasn’t visible. When I open the Control Panel and go to Devices and Printers I can see the drive there and it appears to be alive and well, yet I still can’t see it in Explorer.

I then plugged it into my wife’s Toshiba laptop and it is visible and usable in her laptop.

Any thoughts on how to fix this? Windows help is less than helpful.